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existentialterror · 9 months ago

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Hiii I’m Normal about Dr. Iceberg (red flag, I know) but his name being Julian is complete fanon! Idk where it originally came from, but he’s never referred to as Julian Finn in any onsite tale. The only time he’s been named on the wiki, as far as I know, is when he is called Ellis Gill in a tale called “But We Do Not Talk About That”. While last updated in 2022, was originally written in 2015. Why that name never caught on, I don’t know, but I’m kind of glad. Despite Iceberg being a misogynistic piece of shit, I’m intrigued by the fact that so much is unknown about his character.

Giving him a name detracts from the horror of his story, someone who was once a person being filed down and reshaped to fit a role perfectly, only to snap under pressure and take his own life. And then, if you go with the Resurrection canon/the calm tale, he gets brought back as a cyborg (Cyberg?) that blatantly states it doesn’t have a name. He can’t escape the foundation, even in death.

I’ll cut myself off there— If I don’t, I’m liable to write an entire novel in your inbox.

Fun fish fact (since, if I remember correctly, that is the toll for sending an ask): Lampreys have been around for 400 million years, and haven’t evolved much during that time!

(I forgot about this for a while, sorry!) (In response to this exchange with @scp-l4-clef-alto-001.)

YOOOO Nice research! Today I learned. Thank you! I don't think I'd heard "Finn" before, but I believe you that it's out there. Also thank you for the fish facts. The fish facts are not necessary to send me an ask but are MUCH appreciated. The hagfish is the relative of the lamprey and is another old jawless fish. It has two powers: producing LOTS of mucus, and tying itself in knots, both overhand and underhand. I'm gonna have to read more about ciguatoxins. ❤️🐟

Hey, in exchange for the nice ask and the research, here's a snippet I wrote a long time ago about Sophia Light and your guy. (I like him too! I think he's really interesting.) It's set in the Resurrection canon but back in the past, not long after Dr. Light was recruited to the Foundation. (Might end up on the site eventually but I hate to promise. If nothing else, you know, have this.)

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1997

Light shows up to her appointments on time. She’s trying out this business of being a person again, really giving it her all, and that’s one of the things she decides: she shows up on time.

She’s at the entrance to Research five minutes before her assignment today. There are other two people there: a pretty woman with waves of black hair in business casual behind the receptionist deck, and a pretty man in a labcoat whose spiky hair is bleached at the tips. They’re flirting.

No, that’s not true. The man is flirting, voraciously, draped over the desk to get closer. The woman is listening, and looks bored, and tired. She catches Light’s eye, and rolls her eyes.

Light recognizes this situation from the before-world. She knows what to do. She squares her shoulders and walks right up to them. With the energy of a woman who realized yesterday that she has permanent institutional access to every academic journal ever, and has not regretted any sleep- or non-sleep-related decisions made since then, she says, “So do you know about sail jellyfish?”

She proceeds to tell the man about them, at length, for five straight minutes. The man is confused and unhappy but apparently transfixed. The woman restrains herself from laughing and drifts back to her computer screen.

“ - So that’s why the asymmetry is actually a fitness advantage,” she says, “So that they react differently to the same wind patterns and they won’t risk washing ashore. But because that’s basically random, the evolutionary pressure maintains a 50-50 balance.”

“Cool beans,” says the man, whose eyes have glazed over. “Hey, I gotta go, I’ve gotta meet up with someone - uh, Dr. Light, I think - ”

“I am Dr. Light,” Light says.

The woman doesn’t bother muffling her guffaw. The man - Dr. Iceberg, presumably - looks uncomfortable and then flustered. Light mentally congratulates herself.

“You two are in the dissection room today, right?” the woman says, checking her computer. “Should be set up. Use the cart to move samples, do not lift large samples yourself, I do not care how strong you are, please and thank you. Decon’s ready, just go through the back. One at a time. Ice, you first.”

“Isn’t it set up for multiple people? There’s all the showers and everything - ”

The secretary shrugs. “New policy. Now get out of my sight, Ice.”

“Always good to see you, Break.” Iceberg shoots finger guns at her, as he heads to the decon room entrance.

“Drop dead,” Break calls after him.

They wait for the sounds of the door opening and closing. Break grins at Light. “Thanks for the spiel,” she says. “You got one of those locked and loaded all the time?”

“Usually you have to ask nicely first,” Light says, automatically, because affected confidence was sort of her go-to before, and it seems to be working for her so far. Then she remembers that the last thing this poor woman needs is someone else ambiguously hitting on her and feels bad. But Break just laughs.

“You know that guy?” Break asks.

“I’ve seen him around, I think? I’m - I’m bad with faces.”

“Yeah. Dr. Iceberg. He’s like that. Been a thorn in my fucking side for years. You know, the Foundation is usually pretty good about this kind of thing, in my experience. But Ice, he’s like, Gears’ special little boy, so he can get away with murder.”

Light is confused. “He’s Gears’ son?”

“No, god no - like, you know, he’s… he’s Gears’. …Doesn’t matter. I thought Ice got better for a while there, but it looks like he’s back on his bullshit.”

“Ugh,” Light agrees.

The bulb over the decon chamber entrance turns green. Break tilts her head at it. “You’re doing, like, an autopsy, right?”

“A necropsy - uh, yeah.”

“Well, that’ll probably bring the mood down, you’ll be fine. He’s not the worst, honestly. But if you need, just say the word ‘Ice’ into the lab comms and I’ll fake an evac drill or something to get you out.”

“Thanks,” says Light. She tries to figure out how serious Break is. Break’s permanent wry plausibly-deniable customer service smile offers no hint.

Maybe Light’s overconfident. Maybe this whole business of being a person again has made her cocky. Perhaps she’s been away from a normal social fabric for so long that she’s lost sense of real implications and rules. But she finds she’s not too worried. “I think it’ll be fine,” she tells Break. “I have a lot more jellyfish facts.”

Break laughs, loudly. “Attagirl.” She waves Light into the decon chamber.

#light writes #sophia light #scp foundation #dr. iceberg #ask light #agent break #dr. light

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c0rpseductor · 2 months ago

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random fic thots. and also fatphobia thots. and sexuality thots. Lots of topics

morningstar is just kind of about a lot of stuff that’s important to me bc it’s lestat appeal fic, and one of the things i’m planning to unpack in it is just a bunch of shit about fatphobia and desirability and eating disorders and so on and so forth

so pfeil has disordered eating habits that mostly revolve around restriction, but is still fat. he’s often on that ‘one meal a day just enough food to kinda shakily maintain basic functioning’ grind. it’s not entirely about his body image, but of course like, he’s aware he’s fat and is self-conscious about it, so it’s still relevant.

obviously this is why we need chubby chaser emet. in this narrative. emet likes fat guys. he specifically finds pfeil’s fatness attractive. it also majorly concerns him that pfeil is like…quietly and almost incidentally starving himself in the way a lot of people with eating disorders do when they’re not actively restricting. And he and pfeil just kind of naturally settle into a fairly low stakes D/s thing.

what i’m saying is i think “Please eat and don’t die” may end up getting tied up in their sexual dynamic, and between that and the general focus i feel like i’ve given to both the Idea Of Fatness and what characters are eating day to day, i’ve been kind of worried that if and when things head there readers are going to be like “what is this weird gross feeder shit all about!! Fatphobic! fetishizing! blocked and reported!”

it’s mostly a dumb concern, i think it’d help if i got some sleep lol, but like, idk. what i really want to write here is a story about a very traumatized guy coming to reclaim the idea of having a body and a sexuality and part of that is necessarily going to have to deal with the fact that he’s fat and does not eat in order to punish himself. and it like. just fucking frustrates me that i feel like if you try to touch on that in a sexual context At All then suddenly everything you do and say is suspect and fetishistic and weird and evil and fatphobic. even if you’re fat. Please make that make sense.

like. idk. food is such an important part of daily life bc without it you fucking die. eating together is a very basic human social activity. im very of the dungeon meshi mindset with this. food is a major arbiter of daily rhythms and social bonds and the way characters interact with it says a lot about them and their relationships to themselves and others and denying oneself pleasure related to eating is like. psychologically bad for you. sharing food with other people is a gesture of intimacy and affection and care. you don’t break bread with bitches you hate. Do you see where i’m going with this.

i’ve thought about just not including that dynamic bc of the way people view fat people having basically Any sexuality that acknowledges being fat as Weird Predatory Degen Fetish Shit unless you’re self-flagellating about your weight, but like. I don’t think i want to do that actually. i think maybe i am saying something important about inhabiting one’s own body and also about loving a person who is very ill.

idk. i feel silly making a long defensive post about stuff i haven’t even written yet. i think it’s more kind of like, i just wanna be able to kind of sift through my thoughts, and i wanna be able to express frustration about The Whole Thing. i think it’s kind of fucked up that i don’t feel at all nervous talking about wanting hot guys to put cigarettes out on me or hit me in the face or whatever bc that’s typical kink but the minute im like “i am fat and recovering from atypical anorexia and i would like a hot guy to think it’s hot that i’m fat and encourage me to eat because he thinks that’s hot and not care if i gained weight recovering” it’s the scariest thing in the world bc there is a significant number of people out there that think this is inherently dehumanizing of fat people. and will be offended. or just disgusted. im not even into weight gain i literally just want to be encouraged not to starve myself But Sexy. idk bro it’s fucking nuts that people take issue with this

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faithfromanewperspective · 1 year ago

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sugar coated brain (the fluid ain’t to blame): unraveling Conor Aurelian

I don’t know if this is me admitting to have read embarrassingly little in terms of Actual Books since I turned 18 but. Wow. I loved sword catcher, and for once I was there eating up the plot rather than only relating to the characters so much I was obsessively hoping for a happy ending for them.

I’ve said before that sword catcher was good, so good it’s almost above fandom discourse (like a Beethoven symphony perhaps, you think twice before making arrangements of a masterpiece like that) but even the best symphonies deserve, actually they’re honoured by, critical analysis of the phrasing and melodies and that which are used. And this is a Cassandra Clare book after all. The beauty comes from beautifully (read: realistic, somehow more human than real humans idk I’m blown away every time) constructed characters, and then from the plot. Which was character-driven and so, so delicious, but we’re not talking those kind of spoilers this early in the game.

While I’ll admit that Kel was the most relatable character, followed by Lin or maybe Ana, there were some things about Conor that just cut a little too close in ways I hadn’t thought about in years. Taking me back to some worldbuilding of my childhood, a ‘reluctant princess’ I came up with based on feeling trapped and overprotected and that fantasy world has long since been archived in my head and it’s entertaining to think this weird kid in western sydney who didn’t get to run quite as wild as some of the other kids (but still did get to run quite wild) felt like that when we were the furthest thing from royalty. I didn’t expect to be reminded of that in an adult fantasy book, but here we are, and I’m being entertained to see all the different takes on Conor: some driven to fascination, some to annoyance, and somehow in the 5 of us who’ve actually read sword catcher already everything in between.

But let’s be real for a second: who hasn’t heard the ‘oh you can’t be depressed you have everything you need’ and been like. Really hurt by it?? Who hasn’t sat among know it all adults in their younger years who would just judge the hell out of other young people who supposedly ‘never got to hear no’ and now they have ‘no resilience’ and ‘no wonder they’re having problems’? Referring to people you actually relate to and thought, well this definitely isn’t a safe space to be vulnerable I’ll just suffer in silence? I’ve grown up enough now to see Lin’s trauma behind the way she says this about Conor but part of me is still a little mad at her. As for Conor?? He’s everything I’d expect from someone in his position and I actually don’t think the majority of it comes from ‘never hearing no’ and ‘getting everything he wants’ but rather the things that those try to make up for: a lack of real autonomy over his life, not being allowed to feel Normal Child Feelings, having no one he can relate to and see as an equal, a heavy burden of responsibility before he was ever old enough to understand it, and the many levels of fuckery that’s all done to his parents making them not just emotionally unavailable but frivolous, trying to maintain their own autonomy and connection doing silly little rich people hobbies that just make the divide between and resentment of them vs Every Other Person greater (constant stargazing or Decoration and Control). Sugar-coated brains: how could they not be when everything revolves around you but there’s so little you can actually do but pursue the pleasure you’re told you’re entitled to?

I didn’t expect to be this mad at the royal family culture within SC but when I look back on it I’m not surprised. Not when the setting of the book is on the edge of a revolution, the unraveling of a society that feels so much like today and allows me to zoom out in a way that makes my little revolutionist heart happy. But oh, the angst and the bad decisions as the world teeters on that razorblade. The lives that are lost in the fray. I don’t know what’s happening in our world now but after Cast Long Shadows and an arc I know that she’s proud of (our dear Matthew Fairchild) I do trust Cassie. And in the meantime I’ll let her convince me of what I already know: the lives of nobility are simply pawns in a much bigger game no one (except maybe Ana) knows how to take the reins of, and the life of a pawn, no matter the luxuries, is a sorry life indeed.

This little revolutionist brain of the 2000s had one thing right, and I feel vindicated to see it in such clarity here: the relationship between social class and genuine connection. From the stark contrast of the opening with Cas and Kel, even also Mari and Lin, against the disaster that is the royal family, it couldn’t be clearer to me: when you’re nobody, when there are no expectations of you, you can be who you really are. Maybe not in the eyes of the authorities, and that’s an important distinction to make, but there’s no need to pretend around your nearest and dearest and sometimes that’s worth so much more than hypothetical safety. Because yes you can get away with things when you’re rich but you’ve also got more people trying to assassinate you for who you are specifically rather than just running the risk of getting killed because you’re unlucky and too unimportant for anyone to think you’d be missed. When you’re royalty (or just have parents with really high expectations or are a gifted kid even) you’re given a mold to grow into and no one really asks if that’s who you really are: why would they, when their worldview depends on you being exactly who they want you to be? So if you’re not it you pretend and even with those, like your children, who are close enough to see behind the ruse, you never quite show them who you really are either. You can see how that would drive one insane. You showcase that the only way to exist is to mask until you snap, or lose the ability to be yourself at all. Which leads me to the second type of sugar coat.

(And I’m quoting songs as my inspo behind this post as always, title quote is empty wallets by 5sos and I’m about to move onto sugar coat by little big town aka the band with an irl fairchild in it): this sugar coat is politeness and etiquette. There’s a quote somewhere in Kel’s narration I believe that I can’t find but basically views social etiquette and the like as you know. War strategy or something, which is another little segment of the reminder it’s cassie writing this and there’s a lot of accidental neurodivergence, or neurodivergence existing in a world so very different to ours, because that’s a very neurodivergent way of viewing it imo. And in this case, the sugar coat is like a constructed mask you spend your whole life trying to perfect, wear it as it’s handed down from your predecessors: in Conor’s case, lilibet (passed down from my mum, she wears it so well, put it on my shoulders said it’s colder out there than you think/would I recognise myself, would anybody else, if I took the damn thing off and burned it up?) who does make the frivolity and politics of being queen into her whole personality. She’s equally a pitiable and annoying character for that.

But as for Conor? He’s a Cassandra Clare Created (TM) young man. Of course he can’t quite manage this kind of sugar coat business. The politeness, the etiquette, the little social dances: he longs for real connection (and now we’re back in empty wallets territory, get you high when I’m high, so we see eye to eye: to me this sums out how he makes connections with those who are nowhere near his equals but he wants to have some sort of equal footed connection with: Kel and *[redacted minor spoiler, see below cut]). He’s snapping from the pressure of it, and that’s exactly the kind of driving force for the narrative Cassie uses excellently. We see him coming undone, and hate it (or at least I do) but hope maybe, maybe it’s the path for liberation for him from the life that’s obviously making him (more) depressed (than he otherwise might be), and as the audience we don’t care if the kingdom burns down for this, as long as it doesn’t cause too much collateral damage. And we know it’s going to be a wild ride to get there.

I don’t reckon this is obvious to everyone else but it is to me, with my experience of Christianity and life and just everything that if you’re a leader in any way, you’re a better leader for being liberated in yourself, having autonomy and appropriate boundaries and Conor has none of that and he’s coming undone and yes there’s a lot of other characters (who I will post about later) with their own arcs and A LOT going on (seriously it’s so deliciously complex and so much more so than tsc ever was with maybe the exception of tec which is kind of adult fantasy anyway). But oh. She really knows how to deliver, all through the first book and I can’t wait to see what the next one has to offer!! And to me the characterisation of Conor is just proof on how expertly the whole world of Castellane and it’s stories is being carried out.

BIG GAP CAUSE CUT ISNT WORKING

*and Lin later on, kind of

tagging: @daisymylove and feel free to mention anyone who might like it in comments/reblogs!

#sword catcher #cassandra clare #conor aurelian #I TRIED SO HARD TO MAKE IT UNSPOILERY #and genuinely don’t think it is?!?#not spoilery #I checked again #sword catcher deep dives #<-is that a new tag I see?

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astrologanize · 1 year ago

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have been in a massive funk (depressive episode?) that i haven’t experienced to this severity since 2016 and if anyone can relate then i figured i’d share what i have been doing to help with that

- invested in vitamins (magnesium glycinate, calcium, d3) since i’ve been having skin issues i have been avoiding the sun since i don’t want to go through the process of trialing sunscreens and seeing what does & doesn’t work, potentially worsening said issues smh. but i recently said fuck it and got some neutrogena baby sunscreen that’s fragrance free and all that jazz because it’s supposed to be gentle and it is affordable and neutrogena has worked for me in the past so why not. i purchased another sunscreen months ago but i don’t think my skin was a fan of it because it was a lil burn-y and tingly after application, thankfully i tested it on my arms first and not my face. idk we’ll see. such is life

- also trying to take more notice in the foods that make me feel good and provide me with energy/mood boost! and mostly avoiding foods that aren’t worth the accompanying lethargy or upset stomach, but listen...your taste buds matter...so if a food is enjoyable for me and makes me happy then any *mild* discomfort in the aftermath is worth it in moderation from time to time

- i’m doing a 30 day mindfulness challenge! and that’s lovely! you can look them up and pick whichever provides you with what you feel you’re most in need of. writing down what you are grateful for and focusing on the positives of what is happening in your life also never hurts

- i’ve been clearing out any spaces that need it. even on my annoying ass phone...i’ve been transferring anything i want to save onto a usb and it is a time consuming process that i’m trying to do in increments but i know it’s going to feel great once i have my phone as cleared out as possible so i can start saving new memories & momentos (:

- choosing to shorten my work week by 1 day so that i am able to have a free day on the weekend to fill my personal cup of happiness!! because that is always worth it!!!!!! i shall budget accordingly but i am grateful to be doing so

- “look good feel good” except looking good to me is more about feeling comfortable in my own skin and clothing. i hate putting on a constricting outfit that may look good but makes me feel like i can’t move around freely and enjoy life. outfits that do make me feel good about the way i am presenting myself that also allow me to move freely are the goal! and hygiene is important. some days i feel lazy as hell and don’t want to do the stuff that i know makes me (feel) better but i do it because i know it makes me (feel) better...once in a while tho it’s like lol nah imma let myself be stagnant and not do that for a moment and the world will not end, i won’t feel as great but that’s okay...eventually i will resume maintaining what i need to and perk up. it’s okay to stop for a moment sometimes but ya gotta get back on it

- really trying to keep in mind that every day is a new unlived day that is not meant to look exactly like the last and you cannot always expect your best to look the same. there’s always going to be emotions that come up, mishaps, life interference, and challenges that meet you along the way and that’s how it’s meant to be. we shall control what we can and adapt how we must. you just keep trying! some days we need to ask more of ourselves even when we don’t want to and other days we need to allow ourselves a true rest that offers nothing but peace; some days we make progress, some days are stagnant, some days we regress, and that’s all just...life

sometimes it’s nice to recognize that wow i’m sad today or today is hard for me and allowing yourself to simply have a sad, gentler day to yourself without feeling like things are shit forever - hell, sometimes it’s multiple days or weeks that are off but you gotta know your sun is going to shine again and maybe the off-ness is redirecting you for the best. follow your heart, breathe, take your time when you can and make time when you can, try to persevere without driving yourself up the wall, all the hard work you put in and progress needs to be enjoyed, your life is meant to be enjoyed, it’s okkkaaaayyyyyyyy. tend to your heart and express your heart and embolden yourself with an accepting & firm love - accept all that you are and are not but don’t let yourself believe that you are defined by what you think you lack and that there is no room for you to grow. stand strong in your heart and in your character

#!#long post

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seven-oomen · 3 months ago

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Hi, Ben! I hope decorating continues to go well! And I’m curious about your zoo game you’ve been mentioning.

Hey B! It’s progressing steadily. I’ve almost finished my hallway in terms of floor and wallpaper and am now doing the smaller bedroom. (Only thing left in the hallway is the baseboards/skirting boards? Idk in Dutch we call it a plint. I had to look up the translation.) The game I’m playing atm is called planet zoo. It’s pretty fun, you have complete freedom to build your own zoo and design habitats, signs, and buildings. I recently build a train station:

Including shops, decorations, and a bunch of other stuff. It’s pretty neat what you can do in the game.

So, I saw DP&W a second time (did I tell you that already? My grasp of time is even worse than normal lately.) Anyway, I feel like I managed to pick up on more stuff that I missed because I knew what to expect and was less overwhelmed by all the “EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING SO MUCH!!!" Although I maintain my views on the Odyssey incident, there is definitely an absolute vibe of "pushing the line as close as Disney will possibly let us”. Like I’d noticed it the first time, but holy shit, that second time was even more in your face. (Also still stand by the potential for some flavor of Scott/Jean/Logan in his past based on how he talks about them, because why not add a little more trauma for him? XD )

So did I! (Well not in cinema, that’s too much right now. But I found a link.) Idk if you did tell me tbh, but you told me now XD. And yeah, that oddesy scene is really skirting the line as much as they can. It’s so freaking obvious. But I do really like your interpretation as well. It makes sense for Logan not to be in to that considering everything he went through. (They do fuck nasty on the couch once everything settles in the end. That I wholeheartedly believe. Logan and Wade are so into each other.)

And yeah, Logan def had a relationship with his Jean and Scott. I’m even putting that into the fic I’m writing. Just for the delicious angst that’ll bring.

Also can you believe I’ve been on Ao3 for 10 YEARS?? holy crap.

And I’ve been a voting member for most of that time.

And like, so many (banger) love songs on that soundtrack. So many. XD Ngl, one of my first thoughts during the rewatch of the finale was “I wonder how many fics are going to end up titled some variation of ‘I hear you call my name and it feels like home’?”, so that post had me choking down a cackle. (Yes, I realize I’m one of those song lyric as title authors. Yes, I have thought of several other lyrics from other songs from the soundtrack that would also be great titles for Poolverine fic. No I will not apologize for that. XD ) (Also I stand by my previous thoughts on the Personal Jesus playlist.)

Oh my god you don’t wanna know how many Madonna song fics there are now XD I count at least 3 new ones per day. Hahahahaha. (I laugh but my own fic is titled after a Starkid Song from their musical; The trail to Oregon.)

And I have been trying to come up with Jesus related songs for Wade to put into a playlist but I haven’t gotten much further than Jesus take the wheel and Jesus of Surburbia.

Here’s the fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61ImiJ5GmpyzskXDDZKCz7?si=697e193191a246fe If you have any ideas, feel free to fire away!

Something I hope make an appearance of some variety in someone’s fic: Yukio convincing Laura (and Vanessa?) to participate in a back and forth contest with Wade and Peter (and Remy? [Shhh, let me pretend the TVA got him out]) to send each other videos/TikToks of themselves doing girl group and boy band music video dance routines. Piotr and Dopinder are the (theoretically) impartial judges, while Blind Al is allowed the tie breaker vote when needed. Shatterstar (can’t remember his civvie name offhand) joins whichever group he feels like at the time. There’s no real stakes, but there’s an ongoing extra level that true bragging rights will belong to whoever gets either Negasonic or Logan to join in first. (I at least think this would be very entertaining, but I admittedly may be a little slap happy at this point.)

What do you mean pretend? Of course he got out with Blade and Elektra. I will die on that hill.

But yeah that’s brilliant actually XD. I don’t think Laura herself would participate but she’s definitely the type to egg on others to be stupid. And then laugh at their stupidity. (And Peter, Wade, and Remy would have a fucking blast.) The three girls are watching them with popcorn buckets and Mary Puppins on their laps.

Also, Logan getting to experience some joy in his life. A lot of the characters he seems to end up friends with (Kitty, Kurt, Wade, etc) seem to be the “unrelentingly cheerful and upbeat in the face of severe horror and trauma” types, which I feel is good for him. He needs those kinds of people in his life, whether he would agree or not. XD

He does 😭 I like to think he’s secretly very grateful to be surrounded by them, even if he’s grumpy about it due to the over-stimulation. It’s very easy to fight for people that bring him that much comfort and joy.

And just because I feel like it’s been a while since I offered a purely NSFW suggestion/thought: Wade makes WAY too many pegging jokes to not be a switch (and it hasn’t been THAT long since I saw the first film), so consider; Wade getting railed by Vanessa while Logan rides him like he stole him (bonus here is that he potentially can see both of them as this happens without turning his head, presuming his eyes haven’t rolled back into it.) Alternatively; Wade getting his back blown out while buried inside Logan, who feels full and protected and weighed down in the pleasantest way possible, and Vanessa gets to enjoy how seeing how content and satisfied everyone seems afterward.

I very much like the way you think. I agree, I think Wade is more a switch, but Logan is a bottom. Pillow princess. I think that’s also the most kind to any partners tbh XD. Considering he has an adamantium skeleton... yeah no he’s lying on his back/belly. There’s also a lot of people that have this headcanon that Logan extends his claws when he cums, but I tend to partially agree with that. I don’t think he does it every time, I like to think that in 200 years he has some control over the snikt. But when he’s overstimulated beyond compare (or any other intense emotion), then yeah they come out without him meaning to. Because Idk about others but not every orgasm is higher than life all the time.

I had a lot of time to think about that one when I rped Logan a decade ago, hahhaha.

Oh, and it’s amusing to me to see all the art of Logan flinging Wade like a discus, because I remember there being a running joke among my friends many, MANY the year ago about Colossus or Beast picking up a (comic appropriately sized) Wolvie and hurling him at an enemy. Not sure if this was actually something from a comic or show, but I remember they always called it a Fastball Special.

It is very much a thing in the comics, yeah XD. Fastball special incoming!

So, I’ve rambled more than I meant to, and it’s way later than I realized (like I said, my sense of time is rather vague at best lately XD ), so I will wrap up for now (also I can’t remember at this point if there was anything else I meant to bring up…) I hope you’re doing as well as can be expected, and that the good days are outweighing the bad! I hope things with the apartment continue to go well, and that you get a chair of excellent quality from the municipality. I hope your weather is pleasant, and you and Yara get a chance to enjoy it properly. Sending lots of good thoughts and energy to get your goals, writing or otherwise, accomplished with relative ease. Take care! *HUGS TO YOU BOTH!!!*

Big hugs and cuddles from me and Yara, my friend <3

I’m holding on, I finally had a meeting with other people from the municipality. I get to keep my current chair, and help is on the way. Finally.

I hope work is going well and that people are treating you decently at the pet store.

Take care my friend!

#B #wolverine #deadpool and wolverine #headcanons #Poolverine

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dancedance-resolution · 1 year ago

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job & gender thoughts

i have just realized that a lot of the issues i’ve had at work regarding appearance are all just gender lol. first it was my scrubs fitting like shit, and it was resolved when emi gave me her old scrubs, “girl why were you hiding that figure!”. then my hair looking like shit bc i never do anything with it. then my lack of makeup. and today when emi asked if i wanted to be a “model” for laser leg hair removal and was astonished i turned down what is equivalent to a ~$1.5k series of services…. she asked why and i said some old catholic hang ups which is honestly fucking hilarious looking back but like. yeah. idk why it’s taken me 3 months here to connect the dots that it’s all gender lol

i do enjoy femininity in myself, and i fucking loved it when i was dating a butch. being with her made me feel so much joy and confidence with my gender and allowed me to explore femininity so much more. she’s not really relevant to this since we had broken up a month before i started this job but yeah - wait Oh i remember the point i was trying to make. so the big motivator to my thinking i was transmasc era was a reaction to how restrictive the forced femininity of existing in a catholic space felt to me. but the type of femininity forced on me back then was even very different from now. this is all appearance based, and in my old life i was allowed to not put too much effort into a feminine appearance (TO AN EXTENT) so long as i maintained other signifiers of catholic femininity.

i remember when i first started this job and emi sent out that text about how makeup etc is mandatory, i told my mom i’d quit on the spot if that was actually enforced. and i made it some principled social thing when justifying that to her lol bc even to my own self i think i hadn’t realized how gender related my opposition was.

(“ddr why does your job require makeup etc” estheticians work there and it’s essentially a beauty-making place so i understand it to an extent)

i know i’m not great at my job but i’m very fucking decent at it. i unfortunately do work quite hard. when i started i was basically just a cashier and now i am the sole ava person, sole pictures person, main phone person, and 9 times out of 10 the runner (though i am the cashier far less). i am always busy (i’ve stopped even bringing a book to work) and always working when on the clock. and emi knows this but doesn’t know this i think. today i told maddy i didn’t want to take on extra picture responsibility and i guess i/she conveyed it wrong bc then i overhear emi tell her “since when could ppl pick what to do at their job” and like first of all maddy “picks” not to do pictures or numbing bc it makes her uncomfy and i’m able to do it for her easily, and so i assumed i was allowed to “pick” not to be the picture file person bc taylor already does that as far as i know. i think i did decently explaining my actual thought process to emi but like. i feel like the difference btw how lauren is presumed competent (which she is!!!) and how i’m not presumed competent by maddy (lots of other examples of this) is very obvious to me but not emi. but maddy is emi’s source of info regarding what me and lauren do so. my mom would say i need to talk to emi directly and advocate for myself more but idk. this is just a job to me and i need to learn how to care less about what emi thinks of me as a worker lol.

but what im also getting at here - to what extent was lauren presumed competent over me bc she appears more professional. which is valid to an extent! like she is objectively more “professional” i think, but also i still don’t really understand what creates professionalism so maybe i’m wrong. but anyways - emi has had to fight me regarding my appearance etc and that’s never been the case for lauren. she has been competent appearance wise from day one, so i guess she gets subconscious presumption of competence at her job too. (which she is!! lauren is lovely and a hard worker! but objectively does way less than i do and yet maddy’s out here telling emi i don’t want to take on extra responsibility in a way that doesn’t paint me well i guess meanwhile she says to emi that lauren shouldn’t have to take on that same work bc lauren’s always busy, but she’s on her phone sometimes WHICH IS NOT A SIN TO ME but when i’m breathing wrong it’s a sin to maddy lol so. what’s going on with this lol.

so idk these are my thoughts. what have i gotten out of writing this, i need to care less about work lol. way less haha. i’m not on the clock why have i spent this long thinking about work. & also maybe i need to figure out a way to convey to emi that my lack of feminine appearance isn’t motivated by me blowing off her rule but rather is complicated and hard for me lol. idk if she’ll respect that (she certainly won’t understand it lol) so maybe i don’t but yeah

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lamplightjuniper · 4 months ago

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rant hours: so after a month of getting back into running trying to get prepared for a 10k, I’ve been just running and feeling like absolute shit, putting in max effort to get maybe 40% of the performance level I was at last year and take 5x as long to recover. Like I haven’t been able to hit ANY of my previous best or even average mile times, missing them by several minutes, and need to take so many breaksduring a run. truly infuriating stuff. all this while i’m a million ñercent fatigued in daily life too, just miserable.

so I’m trying to troubleshoot my running and realize that when I actually get up to “top” speed (current not previous) it feels like my lungs are being squeezed? and I realized that I was just. not breathing very well while I run? so I google it and lo and behold- there’s a variant asthma called EIB that is triggered by exercise.

and I’m fucking tired of seeing doctors yall. so fucking tired. a better and faster test would be to just try the recommended treatment first and then if it helps, maybe it’s worth asking the dr.

YALL. I borrowed a few puffs off an inhaler and it was literally night and day difference. I ran for miles maintaining the speed i could barely reach TWO DAYS ago. I could SING and run at the same time. I didn’t need any breaks, and instead of needing an hour to lay on the floor and recover I got back up *full of energy* maybe 10 minutes after running farther in less time than I did, again, two days ago!!!!

I haven’t felt this energetic in ages. does this mean i might have asthma? maybe beyond just exercising? is the constant fatigue lately maybe related to a lack of oxygen???? fuck man. this is crazy. i’ve been struggle bussing so hard but maybe there’s a solution? idk idk. at least i might be able to actually get ready for this race now. :O

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tarotmundomonde · 11 months ago

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🌟Hihihihiiii!! How are youuuu? My name is HS, mu sun sign is ♏️, my venus sign is virgo ♍️

🌟I choose ✨option 3✨

🌟his name is ML he is a leo sun ♌️, virgo ♍️ venus.(he is my crushhhh, but we never talk and I don’t think he knows about my existenceeee)

🌟 I really want this reading bc idk I just need to know like should I try and pursue him? What would he think of me? Does he think I’m attractive? Yk, stuff like that ☹️

🌟 a romantic gif tht I relate to is that ghost hug gif, because I’ve never meet my crush (we both live in a different country)

🌟 a romantic gif that i think you can relate too is that hand gif bc I feel like, you’re someone who offers compassion and lots of comfort to your partner when you’re in a relationship. You are just gen a kind, loving soul.

🌟 I see you as a light blue, bc you remind me of the sky.

🌟Thank you, have a lovely day/night, my love🌟

Hello HS, I'm fine and you?

Let's dive into your reading, shall we?

At first glance, it looks complicated. I don't know, if there has been any changes or progress happened in your connection by now, but the spread looks like the situation is complicated. His heart says yes and it says no. Maybe he is taken? What seems to be certain is that he'll stay true to his own feelings and whatever action he'd take or pass would be according to how he feels and he feels about it. He intends on staying headstrong and a bit stubborn about his ways. He seems not to be into sudden changes and wants to be certain about things and to feel safe. If he is taken, he prefers staying in that relationship, because he is used to it and he doesn't want to let go. What comes to you... it's not saying that he wouldn't know about your existence. He seems to know, even if just by passing. But looking at his thoughts, he is saying it's complicated. It looks like he would rather keep his distance from this connection. Because it looks like he is claiming that there are things he can't do or say or express. What he wants is you to like him from afar. But there is a sense of ignoring you. Like said, it's complicated. It doesn't look like he is gonna do much anything at all. He simply wants to be on top of his life, in full control and having it all. And he will protect that and maintain it. He is definitely rejecting disappointments and regrets from entering his life. So if there isn't any action really taken here, from your side as well, how can there be a proper story? Like said before, I don't know about your current situation, but the cards are suggesting that instead of dwelling on negativity, step up and take a step forward.

ps. Feedback is always appreciated.

#tarot #tarot reading #daily tarot #divination

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yaminerua · 1 year ago

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Idk just rambling about my brain

Man I don’t think I have adhd but I do think my dad does because he fits SO MANY hallmarks of the inattentive subtype. He doesn’t want to bother getting a proper confirmation of that being the case but like the CPN who visits to assist my brother more or less said he agrees that adhd is very likely in him given everything he’s come to understand about my dad over the last several years of knowing him.

But he did also sort of just generally sit and point at all of us and say he thought we were all autistic on like the second time he ever met us so lol I don’t know

it does make me wonder though if there’s SOMETHING going on with me too. My brother is definitely autistic since he received that diagnosis back in school, and though it’s not confirmed, dad matches so many check marks for adhd that it is reasonably likely for him to have it but whenever I look up one or the other to try to see if I see myself in them I don’t feel as though I fully relate enough to one or the other to think I really have it.

Like yeah there are a handful of things I do relate strongly to but idk if they can just be written off as coming from a different source. There’s a lot of trauma and depression and anxiety in general swirling around in my head so it would be easy to put some of those things down to those instead.

so I generally just assume I don’t fit into autism or adhd. But it’s fairly present in the family so I can’t help but wonder.

Autism is definitely in the family on my dad’s side for sure. His cousin and all three of her children have it as well as her brother and I know one of his children has it too.

I found out a while back that my uncle had been told he was on the spectrum too and I wouldn’t be surprised if my other uncle was as well bc they’re both very similar in the same ways, though that’s just speculation. But there’s definitely multiple confirmed instances of it so idk. It makes me curious about whether there’s a chance I’m somewhere on the spectrum too bc as I mentioned before there are some things here and there which I relate strongly to but none of it is strong enough overall to be like oh yeah that sums me up you know? Like maybe some lesser traits but not so much the bigger ones.

I do think I have some kind of dyscalculia for almost certain though, given my well-documented struggles with maths, and other shit like reading clock faces. And the cousins I mentioned earlier all have confirmed dyscalculia. So that’s there. And apparently it can be present alongside adhd from what I read a while back. But again I don’t relate strongly enough to think I really have that.

Executive dysfunction is the biggest thing that does match up. God knows I’ve spent so much of my adult life trying to get myself to do what needs done to maintain the upkeep of even just my own bedroom and even with the best intentions of keeping it up I could never do it. I’d sit for months screaming internally at myself to fucking tidy up and ultimately the best thing that worked to make it happen was knowing I had friends coming up to stay and then I’d suddenly erupt into a hurricane of productive tidying, kicked into action by an immediately approaching deadline. and to an extent I relate to people’s descriptions of what rejection sensitive dysphoria feels like. but at the same time I wouldn’t say I had a particularly hard time in school wrt studying and working, or other things people generally look for. It was the being bullied that I struggled more with then.

anyway idk. There’s something about my brain that is definitely… idk… SOMETHING. It has real observable effects on my life and relationships and everything but I just dunno what exactly it is.

#Personal rambling #there’s some kinda neurodiverse bullshit going on in my brain I just dunno what it is #idk if I’m just second guessing myself out of recognising myself in the things I look up or if I really just don’t fit #it’s more just the presence of it elsewhere in my family that makes me wonder

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today-only-happens-once · 4 years ago

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Ik you're going to block me bc oh no different opinion, but why can't we draw nico white? I mean people draw characters different races all the time, if I want c!Thomas to be asian and maybe virgil to be african then why can't I have Nico as white? Seems pretty double-standard-ey to me idk

I’m going to meet this ask with some grace, because I understand why you may be asking, even though you’ve framed it in an extremely and needlessly passive-aggressive way. I am also assuming that you are white, though it’s impossible for me to know for sure. A disclaimer that I am also white, and am intending to educate based on what I’ve read and heard and learned from POC. I’m not intentionally trying to talk over anyone.

The problem of whitewashing characters (which is when you take a non-white character and depict them as white) relates back to issues of representation and racism in a broader cultural context, and also a historical one. Historically, most media (especially film) has featured white people to the detriment of others. It has told white stories, it has cast white actors, etc. Representation of characters of color and the stories they have to share is, in a broad historical context? Very new. Which is why it is important to protect those characters and maintain those parts of their identity. This article explains it well I think when they write “as a culture practice, having white people play, replace, and stereotype characters of colour obscures and erases their history, agency, and power”. Though that article is talking about casting white actors to play characters of color, the argument extends to art as well.

When you take a canonical character of color and decide to depict them as white, you are contributing to the practice of erasure. You are contributing to the history that worked to establish that “whiteness is the norm” (qtd. in the aforementioned article). It is different than just race-bending (which is what you’re talking about when you talk about drawing c!Thomas as Asian and Virgil as African), because that is taking canonical white representation and lending greater representation to marginalized, historically-erased groups of people. Doing the reverse is erasure, and therefore harmful because of that broader context.

And I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that it’s perhaps especially important in the Sanders Sides’ Universe to fight to preserve characters of color as such, because there is virtually no representation racially in the vast majority of videos. And that’s not anybody’s fault, really. 99% of the videos is Thomas--a white guy--talking to himself. The times that other actors have been brought in, we’ve actually seen a few POC. Valerie is Latina. Terrence is black. Leslie Odom Jr. is black. Joan is, I think, partially Filipino. But the fact of the matter stands that, as a piece of media, Sanders Sides is very white. So it’s even more important to preserve what representation does exist in that universe. And Nico Flores is definitely not white.

Things in general, but especially media, don’t exist in a cultural or historical vacuum. I know that can feel like a lot to undertake as “just a fan artist”, but it’s an important one to be conscientious of. Even the art you make doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

I hope this helps explain some things and sheds some light on any confusion you may have. There’s lots of reading you can do on the issue as well if you dig into the research of it a bit. If you still have questions, try starting with that research component. If you’re still confused, consider directing your questions to fanders of color that are willing to engage with you about that topic. My understanding and experience is limited here.

Edit: I also encourage anyone and everyone to look at the notes on this post. There’s a lot of good conversation and different perspectives being shared.

#sanders sides #whitewashing #sanders sides spoilers #ts spoilers #nico flores

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sourwormsaresour · 3 years ago

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idk if anyone has talked about this but I feel like no one has pointed this out yet.

So, this fucker right here:

Do you know why he’s named “chocolate” and how this food is associated with this character?

Let’s start with how chocolate is made. The cocoa tree that produces cocoa beans and ultimately chocolate is very finicky with the environment it needs to thrive in; you need a very warm, humid climate year-round where it can also be protected from strong weather like harsh sunlight and heavy winds. That’s easily done within the rainforest where the weather is naturally maintained and surrounding trees can protect the cocoa tree from weather or in farms where these trees will be grown with other trees that will provide them with the protection they need. Alternatively, you can create a warm and humid greenhouse instead where the tree can be under constant surveillance to maintain its environment. The greenhouse approach is often seen in research to find ways of growing chocolate in other places around the world and hopefully making the approach affordable and sustainable enough to use over traditional methods.

Here’s what the lab used to cultivate cocoa trees looks like. It’s called the “International Cocoa Quarantine Centre” and is based in Britain.

Another factor in growing a cocoa tree is elevation. Ideally, you should be between 30-300 meters (about 100 to 1000 feet) above sea level or at least under 600 meters (about 2000 feet), which is considered low elevation. In general farming, lower elevations will create sweeter fruits that can ripen faster; the downsides of farming at such a level is everything being prone to rot faster, including the plants that bear the fruits themselves (specifically their roots). Farmers in low elevation need to consider factors like lower ventilation and lack of natural drainage, which can cause rotting. Because of how complicated the conditions for cocoa trees are, it can get costly to grow and maintain them. One way to alleviate the cost of maintaining cocoa trees (besides exploitation of workers and unsustainable farming) is by tree grafting. This technique is commonly used in creating more trees in general and especially common in the chocolate industry. Grafting involves simply taking parts of a tree and attaching it to a tree that is genetically similar and doing so helps grow new cocoa trees, control the quality of the cocoa beans, and reduce cost of production overall.

Here are some of the things that can happen if you don’t grow your cocoa tree properly. Unfortunately, some of these issues are unavoidable; why they happen and how to prevent them remains unknown and researchers are still trying to find answers that can explain why it happens and how to prevent or resolve them.

After years of growing and waiting for the tree to mature and produce pods, we finally have cocoa beans to harvest and make chocolate. Creating chocolate itself involves a controlled form of rotting we know too well: fermentation. Disclaimer: some say fermentation is the opposite of rotting because it prevents decay but others say fermentation is defined as a controlled form of decay while rotting is defined as uncontrolled decay. For this post, I’ll stick with the latter definition. Fermentation allows us to get stuff like alcohol, yogurt, and kimchi by breaking down items, essentially making them decay and rot, to create new items by using microorganisms like bacteria and yeast to perform the process. Before cocoa beans turn into chocolate, they need to be fermented for a certain amount of days- no more and no less than necessary. It’s not going to be like wine such that aging the product will make the quality better. Over-fermenting leads to a waste product that’s just completely rotten, moldy, and just unusable in the end. And like any type of fruit, the cocoa pod will ultimately ripen and rot after it falls off the tree if it’s not used over time. Improper fermentation will also cause mold to occur, causing the beans to rot than ferment. Mold can also be caused by moisture coming in contact with the beans. Unlike cheese or meats, the mold on cocoa beans can cause long-term health issues if consumed. What we end up getting after fermenting, roasting, and grinding the beans is a pure cocoa paste or “pure chocolate.” Once the chocolate is made, it cannot get moldy; it can develop a mold-like appearance called bloom but that’s safe to eat and technically not mold. However, if you separate the cocoa powder from the paste, that can mold if it comes in contact with water.

Look at how moldy these cocoa beans can get:

Pure chocolate has health benefits like providing antioxidants, being a major ingredient in skincare as cocoa butter, and reduce health issues. However, the chocolate we’re all used to eating is some cocoa paste with added ingredients (milk, nuts, fillings, etc.), and these ingredients are the things that end up turning chocolate into unhealthy food. You can eat pure cocoa paste, but it wouldn’t be defined as chocolate and it won’t be as tasty; even bars labeled "70% cacao" have added ingredients to it. One particular ingredient in chocolate that is a great example of how it makes chocolate unhealthy is processed sugar. Sugar itself has addicting properties and is unhealthy for many reasons, yet it’s a huge part of why we love to eat chocolate. It’s also why we have to eat chocolate with added ingredients in small quantities despite the health benefits chocolate has- the benefits and the downsides cancel each other out (i.e. pure chocolate prevents tooth decay but sugar causes tooth decay, chocolate lowers blood pressure yet sugar contributes to health issues that can cause higher blood pressure). The development of chocolate as a sweet candy in today’s world rather than a healthy ingredient also plays into this.

Based on this info, we can see how chocolate shaped Cioccolata as a character and his Stand’s abilities. The mold and rot aspect of Green Day is easily explained with the fermentation process and how the process of chocolate is susceptible to mold up throughout. Green Day’s functionality working only when victims are underneath Cioccolata is because cocoa trees require lower elevations to thrive and how lower elevation increases chances of rot in produce. The constant surveillance and maintenance of cocoa trees in a laboratory setting can reference Cioccolata finding pleasure in recording his victims’ misery, his “research” in torturing their bodies, as well as the intense and detailed work that comes with studying and practicing medicine. The tree grafting in the chocolate industry connects to Green Day’s second ability that allows it to dismember and reassemble Cioccolata with mold. It also connects to Ciccolata’s sadistic nature when it comes to manipulating his victims’ bodies and the brutality of his Stand’s mold being able to break people’s limbs apart (think Sorbet’s 36 frames, Gelato’s possible taxidermy when he was discovered by Formaggio, and how bodies affected are easily snapped apart when mold gets on them). The dichotomy of chocolate as healthy food and junk food also relates to Cioccolata as a character who should have been good (because he’s a doctor) but does more harm instead. The role of sugar in chocolate plays into that as well, but it’s especially related to how sugar cubes are used to control Secco and Cioccolata full name in JORGE JOESTAR is Dolcio Cioccolata (literally “sweet chocolate”). Hell, I can go on about how Secco’s name has a connection to chocolate too.

I’ve seen how characters in VA are shaped by the food they’re named after, down to their Stand abilities, so it’s nice to see that Cioccolata follows this too. Let me know if you guys have other information that can add to Cioccolata’s characterization. :)

Btw this is based on some Googling I did, which involved reading a few papers that came up on search and a Chocolate tour that I did when I was in Guatemala last month, so please let me know if the information is incorrect or add with your findings to correct it.

#JJBA #JoJos Bizzare Adventure #Vento Aureo #jjba vento auero #Golden Wind #cioccolata jjba #cioccolata jojo #cioccolato #chocolate #naming conventions #secco #secco jojo #secco jjba #jorge joestar novel

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binniesthighs · 4 years ago

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call me babydoll | reader x chan

soooo shhhh this actually a part one shhhh but i’m just trying out writing out different things and getting out some of my ideas outta my head that i’m really excited about, this one being one of them!! for now...just pretend that this is just a regular ol’ drabble hehehehe. this part is the set-up chapter (shhh i mean drabble)

One

Pairing: self insert, female reader x bang chan

Genre: fluff, smut, and angst

Tags: (overall) bodyguard au, moderndayprince!chan, bodyguard!reader, secret agent au, royal au, action and peril, plot driven, running out of time, slow-ish burn, growing feelings, softswitch!chan, hardswitch!reader, some skz side characters, jeongin third wheel and comedic relief LOL, travelling, chan being expensive and having a lil bit of a superiority complex, flirtyyyy chan, bits of mystery, explicit language, mentions of food and alcohol, idk think like 007 vibes hehe

CWs: guns and gun violence, a shooting in a ballroom, mentions of blood

Word count: 4.6k

Parts

ONE | TWO

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here early.”

“Well, expect the unexpected.”

“Don’t turn the motto back at me. I’m sick of hearing it so many damn times.”

“What? You and I both know that it’s true. You’re here early too, so, technically you don’t get to say anything.”

Jeongin straightened his bow tie, then patted down the sides of his perfectly ironed tux with not a crinkle to be found. Knowing him, it was a miracle that he hadn’t messed it up in some form yet. He promptly took out his pocket square to clean off his glasses.

“You’re looking nice. Seems like they don’t mind spending money now on you these days.” He blew off the flecks of dust on his lenses.

“They know that they get their return on their investment. And thank you.”

You smoothed down the sides of your dusty pink dress that nearly went all the way down to your ankles. Had you any other choice, it would’ve been something different, but, dresses were really good at hiding your thigh holster compared to the slacks you usually favored. You didn’t mind the times that you would have to put on a pretty dress, it somewhat reminded you that there was normal life outside of your job. Not to mention, they had started sending you jewelry as well. You always had liked the look of a diamond necklace.

“You do your research for tonight?”

Jeongin nodded, then took from his pocket his phone to read over the details.

“I’ve done a background check on everyone attending, we shouldn’t have any issues. It’s already a low risk event anyway. Charity is never something to get too worked up over, but, you never know with the detail that some of these people come with...who they might be tied to...”

“--The only people we can trust is ourselves.” You nodded with arms crossed.

“Expect the unexpected, I know.” He slid his phone back into his inside suit pocket to adjust his cufflinks.

“--Nervous?” You took note of his fidgeting actions.

“Nervous? No. I’ve been through this before. You know that.”

You flicked your partner right on his forehead strung with his white hair. You had really wished that he had picked a less conspicuous color, but he had strings to pull that you didn’t.

Jeongin cleared his throat, “You do your once over?”

“Do you even need to ask? I did it hours ago and when we arrived. You know that I’ve done this before too.”

“I know. I know.”

Jeongin looked out at the vast circular atrium that made up the center of the hotel. Several stories down under the glass rooftop, you could hear the faint sprinkling of the intricate fountain which smelled of copper. A bit further down, you could see the tips of the tree branches from the indoor landscaping. Across the way, a door slammed with residents tucking in their ties. The two men you had recognized from the roster: a simple thing which made you feel at ease. Your young partner must’ve started to have an effect on you. A sense of unease seemed to quell in your neck. You always listened to your hunches.

“W-what do you think he thinks of us?” Jeongin broke the silence.

“Well,” From inside the room you had waited outside, you could hear his distant murmuring, so you lowered your tone. “I think that he has yet to trust us. It’s only been a few weeks. He doesn’t seem like the kind to give himself up easy. That, and I’m sure his resentment of his father must have some influence.”

“You think he hates us?”

“I think he hates his father for hiring us. I mean, wouldn’t you? His old security detail, he had them for years.”

“I guess so. But, we’re not like his old detail.”

“No. We’re not. I don’t think he gets that yet. I think he sees us as one more way his father has a hold on him.”

“It’s not like he can do much else about it when his dad’s a kin--”

“--No, no, thank you, really, it’s lovely. Some of your best work. Thank you.”

Chan swung open the door to his room, stopping Jeongin right in his sentence.

“Ah. You’re here already. That’s...punctual.”

As dazzling and showy as ever, Chan looking nothing short of a magazine model. For a prince, he had certain...appearances that he had to maintain. Today, it was a velvety and maroon suit jacket with a white button up. On the collar, two matching brooches had been perfectly placed, and they were silver like moonlight in the shape of English ivy and adorned with diamonds. On his lapel, he wore the royal insignia of the lion and the wolf. Behind him, you could see his slew of stylists cleaning up their makeup kits and obscene assortment of designer dress shoes for him to pick from. You had thought before that he even smelled like royalty: stuffy white roses with a hint of priceless cognac.

Jeongin bowed his head respectfully. “Everything has been prepared for tonight. The rest of your guards are surrounding the building, and I’ll be corresponding with them as needed, your Highness.” He tapped at his earpiece.

Chan drew his attention over to you, giving you a rather lusty glare. Over the past couple weeks, you had gotten used to it. He was a prince to every extent of the word. If there was anything that he had wanted, he simply had to ask. It drove him insane that all he could do was merely look at you. You had wondered if he harbored anything else for you besides the way that he would devour the curves of your shoulders and hips.

“Fox. Bee. You look nice tonight. I like seeing you dressed up. Makes me feel less out of place.”

You couldn’t help but let out a little sound of discontentment over his rather affectionate nickname for you. You and your partner had been introduced to him as F and B. Quickly he had figured out Jeongin’s codename as Fox, considering that he had done a poor job picking out one that wasn’t related to him at all. Anyone could tell that boy was fox-like, and he also just wasn’t that creative when it came to picking out a name for himself. B, or Bee as he had decided, was your name; as in bumblebee. After learning about Fox, he figured that there was an animal theme going, so Bee seemed to fit best in his oponion.

You tested his glare with your best, “Thank you, your Highness.”

Jeongin gulped. “Your assistant should be waiting downstairs with your itinerary. She told me that you should meet her first off.”

“You work too hard F. Have some fun tonight, hm? But don’t...drink too much. You’re responsible for my life remember?” Chan clapped his bodyguard on the back.

Your partner nervously laughed and adjusted his glasses once more: his preferred tic.

“And Bee?” Chan rose a brow to lean into close and whisper. “Stay close, alright?”

“Of course, your Highness.”

Chan let out a little scoff after getting one more proper look at your frame. “Damn. You really are stunning. Just a little too dangerous for me though.”

You rolled your eyes, dishing him outa, “Whatever you say, your Highness.”

Jeongin threw you and annoyed glare before tracing after Chan as he sauntered down the hall to the glass elevator.

“Bee? You coming? Or do you have something better to do?” Chan’s voice called down the hall with an echo and a little teasing gesture of his hand.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It had been seven years since you had chosen this line of work, and each time that you had to go to one of these things, you hated them more and more. Not because they were hard to control--they were easy--but you just hated how many superficial and self-absorbed people that they could fit into one room.

The air was filled with the scent of champagne bubbles and too much Chanel No. 5. From corner to corner of the room, and even next to the ice sculpture of the lion and the wolf crest, silk, satin; velvet and the best cotton could be found. Long gloves covered the arms of ladies with wrinkling skin, and tweed vests held in the guts of men who indulged in their food just as much as their mistresses. All this effort just to appear as if they had given one care about the philanthropic efforts of the royalty.

Several neatly dressed waiters passed you with golden platters of hors d'oeuvres made of ingredients so expensive, they would’ve cost the same amount as the generous donations made by the attendees. If you could’ve, you would’ve scooped up as many of them as you could, just to eat all of their copious amounts of money yourself, but, there was somewhere a rule that you had to keep your hand to yourself when you were on duty. The best that you had to look forward too was take-out to eat at 3 in the morning with Jeongin later.

Buzzing chatter filled your earpiece while each of the additional guards gave their hourly report.

“Damn. It’s fucking colder out here than I thought. It’s fucking summer.” One of them joked to the tune of the other guards laughter.

“Stay focused.” Jeongin scolded over the line. “Don’t leave your posts until your shifts change.”

While he was a timid man, Jeongin was not one to mess around. Son of the director, he knew that he had big shoes to fill. After pleading for years for her to admit him into the academy, she had agreed. Everyone knew the reason why she didn’t want him in this line of work. Too many dead. Too many missing. In some ways, he was also yours to look after.

You trailed after Chan who was busy talking to his assistant and his publicist. While he nodded at their words, you knew that he must’ve been barely listening. Chan never really was one for formality, but much rather enjoyed simplicity and pleasure. Jeongin and you had somewhat of a bet going: out of all the guests, you had liked to bet which one he would take with him to his bedroom. Since you had all the profiles of the guests, you liked to bet a little money on which one it would be.

Jeongin had guessed it to be the heiress and daughter of a tycoon who had made a multi-million won donation in the name of his company. It was ironic; his very company was a big-scale pollutor who liked to make nice with the crown. She was conventionally very pretty: long legs, a thin frame, she was educated and looked as if she could hold somewhat of a conversation...not like that mattered to him.

You had predicted it to be the foreign CEO who had just started business dealings with the crown. While she might’ve looked a bit stuck-up and prim, she was intimidating, and a challenge. Chan loved challenges. Chan also had a pension for pretty boys with a bit too much money on their hands--usually inherited--and with nothing much else to do other than dote on him. There were plenty of those attending the gala tonight.

Chan snaked through the crowd, bowing his head at all of the Good evening, your Highnesses and the It’s a pleasure to meet you, your Highnesses. Every few moments or so he would take a bite from a golden plate and then pop it into his mouth. The whole night long, he would hold his glass with him and it would get refilled for him without him even needing to ask. You sometimes liked to pretend that in some places, they must’ve assigned someone to watch him from afar to make sure that he would never need anything before it was given to him. It wouldn’t have surprised you.

“Having fun Bee?” Chan languidly rolled his head back, swirling his glass.

“As much fun as you are.” You quipped.

“Anything that I should be concerned about?”

“Nothing of concern.” You stated matter-of-factly. Had you matched his flirting tone, you knew that you wouldn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the night. “Fox. Report?”

“Nothing that I can see. No one has been tagging you.” Jeongin had staked himself up on the upper balcony of the banquet hall room, and had been watching for as long as you had been following after the prince. “You sensing anything strange?” His voice tickled in your in-ear.

“Just a bunch of the normal crowd.” You kept your tone down low. “He’s rubbing noses with the usual. You’ve seen too?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

You followed Chan to his seat nearest the front of the room which had been fashioned into a stage with a clear glass podium in the center. Right in front there was one more crest decorating it. Chan had ensured it to be so: he had wanted everyone to know that this was all for his charity.

“It seems like our bets aren’t working out. He hasn’t talked to either of the...suspects.” Your partner changed his choice of words knowing that the other guards were listening.

From the opposite side of the room both the heiress and the CEO stood with thin glasses of wine in their lithe hands. Chan had in fact walked right past them, and didn’t even notice.

“Tonight is going to be a long night.” Jeongin sighed over the line.

You politely pushed past attendees with a raised hand and a sweet smile. You had found that when you smiled, you had appeared less intimidating.

“Oh wait...what’s this?”

“What?” You whipped your head around after Jeongin’s interjection. “What? Do you see something? What’s the call?”

“Relax! It just looks like he’s approaching someone he wants to talk to. I think both of us are about to be proven wrong.”

“Ah, shit.” You sighed. “Don’t put me on edge like that.”

“I’m only trying to entertain myself.”

“Name. Who is it? You’ve got the roster.”

You partner was quiet for a minute, and you watched from a distance as Chan approached the man leaned over a martini seated at one of the perfectly decorated tables.

“Uh, I think that he’s Lee Minho. Some kind of royalty from somewhere else. Pretty low ranking from the looks of it. I think that he made a donation himself...and it’s...damn, larger than you would expect.”

“Should we be concerned?”

“No. Seems harmless.”

“Thank you for coming,” You made out the words that Chan had mouthed. He drew a chair next to the unknown man.

From what you could tell, Lee Minho was handsome to the full extent of the word: nearly all of his physical features were exemplary and his suit appeared to have been fitted to perfect for him; likely one of a kind. He too wore an insignia on his lapel, but it was one that you hadn’t recognized before. He had immaculately styled hair that had some kind of rebellious and boyish charm to it. The man had a kind of mystery about him too: you had been able to pride yourself in being able to read people, and it had saved your life on more than one occasion. But with him, there was something that you couldn’t place.

“Do they know eachother?” You asked Jeongin.

“Not that I know of. School friend maybe? Seems like all the royals send their kids to the same schools.”

“Hm. That would make sense.”

“Enjoying yourself?” Chan said.

Lee Minho nodded, and rose his glass to clink it with the prince’s.

“Do we think that he’s our...suspect?”

The stranger dipped his head into his hand as he listened to Chan speak. A flirty gesture that you had seen a hundred times or more. Still, the way that he inspected Chan, it wasn’t adoring. Or at least, you didn’t think that it was.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“What the hell are you yapping about?” One of the other guards snapped over the line.

“Um, classified stuff.” Jeongin quickly explained. “Above your paygrade. Don’t worry about it.”

“Fox. Watch out for him tonight.” You snuck over to a corner of the room where you could watch the two of them more discreetly.

“Affirmative....” Your partner paused. “Babydoll.”

“Pffff--Babydoll??” The same guard stifled his laughter. “You call her Babydoll, Fox? Damn, you all must be closer than I thought. Didn’t know that I was missing out on some of the action--”

“--Ever heard of a codename, Three?”

“Babydoll’s her codename.”

A grin crept over your lips. “Expect the unexpected.”

You had almost gotten distracted enough to miss how Lee Minho had leaned over to whisper something into the prince’s ear. After he had done so, Chan laughed out a little, then reached his arm around the other man’s chair comfortably.

“They’re...cozy.” You updated your partner.

“I’m trying to cross-check where he might know him from.”

Chan’s assistant and publicist finally slipped away with giddy little smiles. In many ways, you were jealous of them. They could leave whenever the wanted, eat what they wanted...

Jeongin scoffed. “Well, turns out...nothing. I can’t find anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Negative. I’m not seeing any crossover.”

“So they really are strangers?”

Your partner sighed. “Looks like neither of us are cashing ou--I mean--finding the suspect.”

Under your breath, you wondered aloud, “Who are you...Lee Minho?”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The night drew on longer with the rest of the formalities: the formal dinner, followed by several speeches from important people while dessert was being served. It all led up to the final act: His Royal Highness, Prince Chan’s speech. On several neat notecards marked with the crest, he held them in front of him while he ate his last bits of Mont Blanc Chocolate Pavlova. Even the name of the sweet itself sounded pretentious. Granted, it smelled delicious--as many expensive things did.

You stifled a yawn from your little set up on the edge of the room. At least you should’ve been able to sit, but it turns out that sitting is also against the rules in this line of work. A couple other security and bodyguards had joined you at the edge: some of their heads nodded with sleep, and the others looked as if they had taken one too many energy shots. Luckily, your stamina had been well crafted.

A fancily dressed MC made his way up to the podium and the room filled with applause after the last speaker had said all of their correct mandatory words.

“It is my honor to introduce to the stage, our wonderful head benefactor of this organization, His Royal Highness, Prince Chan of the Crown.

Applause tenfold of before erupted through the whole room and it wasn’t even an afterthought for the every attendee to stand up from their seats in an ovation. It was a force of habit for you, but you found yourself clapping as well.

Chan rose with grace, and re-buttoned his jacket with finesse. A blinding spotlight found him and it made the diamonds adorning his beck wink brilliantly. Even more blinding was his pearl white, and perfectly trained smile accompanied by his wave.

Thank you. Thank you. He mouthed.

“It’s like he’s a frickin’ movie star.” Jeongin groaned.

“Might as well be with the way that they treat him. You know deep down they’re all just terrified.”

Chan made his way up to the stage in all of his regality, and the applause didn’t stop until he cleared his throat. A collective groaning of a couple hundred chairs squeaked when everyone sat back down.

“Thank you everyone, really. I wanted to thank you all for your generous support in your donations to this organization, as well as your association with the crown. I’m sure that all the beneficiaries of your donations are beyond thankful compared to me. Without you, this would not be possible.” Chan spoke with grandiose gestures, as usual, but this time, he had found you on the side of the room. “Listen, aside from being a prince, I’m also just a person. A person who knows what it means to struggle, to--”

“--I can’t listen to this anymore.” You whispered into the quiet room, and to your partner.

“Just a few more hours.” He droned. “I almost wish that something would happen so that we don’t have to sit though much else of this.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

In the corner of your eye, Lee Minho shifted in his seat, but still kept his undivided attention to the stage. You figured he must’ve been just like the rest of them: enamored by the flashiness of the crown--and Chan. He had a way of putting a spell on people: it was the kind of spell that a prince of deception had crafted after years of being kept under lock and key.

“--Anyway, what I’m trying to say, royal or fanciful we all might be, in the simplest way, we’re all just people, therefore this is what connects us all. Thank you.”

Chan was gifted yet another standing ovation that was somehow even more thunderous than before.

“Yeah right.” You scoffed. “People born into money. There’s a difference.”

Chan gave his last waves, then a clamor echoed from the back of the room. At first, it had just sounded like the same raucous laughter you had heard all night, but then it shifted to something different. The sound of laugher turned into shouting, then screams: high pitched and piercing. You had seconds to respond, head whipping around the room to catch sight of the confused prince. In your in-ears, the the sound of gunshots echoed with rapid-fire speed. Machine guns. Shouting commands barked in your ear, and muddled with Jeongin’s string of demands and questions.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE? REPORT! REPORT!”

Your heart instantly started beating into hyperdrive, and your legs sprinted as fast has physically possible

“THEY’VE GOT GUNS!” A shrill and cracked voice of an older woman wailed from the back of the room.

Immediately after she had said so, shots fired into the darkened room with sparks, and the metallic sound of bullets hitting the marbled ground followed.

Chan looked around in his panic for you, petrified on the stage. You slung your gun out from your thigh holster and latched onto him with all of your might.

“TH-THEY JUST CAME OUT OF NOWHERE IN THESE VANS. THEY’RE ARMOURED, WE CAN’T--”

“Get the fuck down there and secure the exists!” Jeongin growled into his mic. “B--is the prince secure??”

“Secure!” You yelled back. Using your body as a barrier, you led the cowering prince through the mass hysteria of the crowd.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Shit.” Chan shook under your iron grip.

More shots fired into the room and bodies parted like the sea and fell over each other.

From the balcony, you had caught Jeongin aiming his own gun at the chaos below.

“I’ll cover you! Fuck! There’s so many of them! Get him to the car out back--Three, Six, meet B out there! Three!? Six!? Report!”

“Three and Six are down F!” One of the guards panted. “I can provide cover out back!!”

“Who’s speaking??” Jeongin bellowed, then aimed from above at one of the intruders. Your only focus was on weaving you and Chan out of there, but you had seen one of them in a blur. Each of the men with guns wore dark grey suits with black ties and leather gloves. Each of them wore their own crest: and it was all red.

“Bee?? Bee???” Chan shouted out for you, and jumped every time the crack of a shot echoed in the ballroom.

“I’ve got you, your Highness. We’ll be out soon. Keep your head down and listen to me.” Your arm held to him tightly, and you soon found the exit nearest. There was no telling if there would be more of them outside, but you loaded your gun quickly just in case, and pointed it out.

“Jeongin, get your ass down here!”

“Jeongin? Who the fuck is that??” Chan ducked down to hide himself behind your frame.

His name had slipped on your tongue, but that hardly mattered.

“I’ll be down in a second!!!”

“Don’t fucking waste time up there when I need you down here!!”

“Two! Two Reporting!!” A man suddenly yelled in your in-ear. “I’ve made it out back and I’ve secured the exit. The car is safe!!”

“FOX! Now!”

Your partner heaved, “I’m coming, I’m coming!!”

You kicked open the exit door, gun’s still blazing, however one one else could be found on the other side.

“Thank God,” You sighed.

“Oh shit, I’m gonna be sick.” Chan had turned paler than white, then stumbled in your arms.

“Hey, HEY!” You held him upright. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You need to trust me. Your life is in my hands and I’m not giving it up easy, got it?”

“O-okay.” He stammered, then attempted to straighten himself.

“The Prince is outside, repeat, The Prince is outside. Two, are you in position?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Other than the fact that you had just escaped absolute peril, the evening was unbearably pleasant. Crickets chirped in the summer evening, and the humidity of the night smelled gorgeously of the lake that was near-by as well as the vast array of flowers that had been purposefully landscaped around the hotel. Chan’s uneven steps scraped at the gravel walkway.

Since you had canvassed the whole building well, you had known exactly where the getaway car was, but you were still careful.

“Bee. Bee!” Chan blabbered. “Have-have I told you yet that I-I’m in love with you?”

“No, you haven’t Your Highness.”

“I fucking am. If I die tonight, I want you to know that I am ridiculously in love with you, and fuck, I wanna--”

“--I’m sorry, Your Highness, respectfully, but now is not the time for this and you are not dying on my watch.”

Somewhere off in the distance, frogs croaked, and the splashing of fish in the lake plopped at the surface waters. You turned a corner to finally see Two waiting his his gun raised. He was a bit of a shorter and scrawnier man, but something about him told you that where he lacked in strength, he must’ve made up for in agility.

“I’m out! I’m out!” Your partner gasped, and over the in-ear you could hear his running footsteps. “I’m almost there! I’ll be there in a second!”

“Your Highness,” Two bowed and opened the car door. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You can call me Two or J. Either you prefer.”

Jeongin came bounding around the corner with heaving breaths and his clothes askew. His glasses which just barely held onto his face had a crack on them and his knuckles were covered in blood.

“Let’s go.” The younger man prompted.

“In the car you go, Your Highness.” You motioned for him to do so.

Chan whimpered like a toddler.

You shoved his body in, “Stop that. Get in the car.”

“I’m in love with you Bee!” He yelled out, “I’M FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU BEE!”

Jeongin slammed the door in his face with a bit of a chuckle.

“He’s delirious.”

“Mm.” your partner smiled. “Sure.”

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 3 years ago

Text

idk how many people would even want to see this BUT i wanna yell about Leela and Brax so here's a list of all their scenes togethr/scenes pertainng to them that i can recall (pLEASE add on if i missed anything/ you have any additional thoughts!! i could talk about these two all day!)

right off the bat in Weapon of Choice when Leela is on the outskirts of the Citadel and Brax goes to bring her back (which is interesting in and of itself, bc usually i would imagine a chancellery guard would go do that so what made Brax decide to instead??), Leela kinda goes off at him bc she's hurting and instead of trying to actually explain what's going on Brax doesn't even try to argue he just says "we need you" which is great bc Leela has that instinctive desire to be needed and to help people and he's speaking right to that -- also as far as we know, this is Leela and Brax's first actual meeting in canon? it's implied that they know of each other, which makes sense, but it doesn't seem like they've ever directly interacted before: Brax seems almost slightly uncertain, and Leela is combative, but when he's gentle with her she's actually quite receptive

the literal next scene after that, where the OT4 is all in one room for the first time (they still kinda hate each other at this point but still !!!). Narvin explaining Gryben and being a real jerk about it and Leela (understandibly!) questions if Gryben is a prison world, and Brax (who to this point has been mostly quiet as Narvin and Romana brief Leela) jumps in to both clarify Narvin's previous xenophobic statements while also maintaining the inherent questionable/negative connotations

(btw it's actually pretty important to note that Romana self-edits herself a lot when talking to Leela, especially in the earlier seasons; you can actually hear her revising the things she says to put it in terms that she thinks Leela will better understand. and i mean she does it out of genuine consideration for her friend associate but it often comes across as varying levels of patronizing. Narvin also obviously "dumbs things down" when dealing with Leela early on, but like... Brax never does that on any level. the only difference i can tell in how he addresses Leela vs how he talks to anybody else is that he seems much more kind with her than almost anyone else???)

their conversation about the Matrix in The Inquiry: this is REALLY important (and if you've ever talked to me on ao3 i've probably gone off to you about it lol) because it's layered. they're talking about the Matrix but they're also not because in answering Leela's question Brax is making a very thinly veiled allegory (which he outright states a minute later) to Time Lord society/politicians/most importantly HIMSELF -- he's actually strangely open about his morals/beliefs in this scene and i'm living for it tbh -- and i find it very interesting that even though he does directly explain what he means ("how do you know all this?" / "because i am a politician.") he also leaves it for Leela to work out the implications. like it's a very nuanced conversation bc there's double meaning in it and most people on Gallifrey seem to think that Leela is tone-deaf and can't pick up on that stuff (even Romana sometimes oversimplifies things to her) but Brax totally just lets her take from it what she will bc he believes her intelligent enough to understand. he doesn't think her any lesser because she's human.

ALSO on a secondary note to the above: the fact that Leela has a question/needed clarification (sorry, haven't listened to this in a while i forget how it actually happened) and actively sought out Brax to talk to about it?? like she knows Romana better she could have gone to her but i feel like Leela kinda imprinted on Brax and someone she can go to for help if she needs it; maybe it's partly bc she knows he's under marginally less pressure than Romana is but also the truth of the matter is that Brax was the most genuinely helpful person to her in the previous stories and that probably means a lot to her (esp. bc he acts like the essence of everything she hates about Gallifrey but he doesn't treat her the way she would expect from that). btw this topic is gonna come up again in a hot minute

that part where Brax gives her that information that might help her re: the Andred thing, even though he really probably shouldn't have done that -- it kinda makes me think about what he must have been like with Theta tbh???

actually this is mostly my own conjecture but there's some neat stuff in Spirit bc during the *waves hand vaguely* bodyswap dream sequence thing, Romana is very "!!!! Brax can help us !!!" which is tecnically Leela brain talking, so like there's the implications of the stuff i've said above about Leela having this idea of Brax where she knows he's someone she can go to for help

can u tell i'm soft for them

Leela sounding really sad/distracted when she talks about how Brax isn't there YES i'm grasping at straws but a lot of this relationship really is conveyed through the voice acting bc of how little direct focus there is on the characters. there's actually several scenes in Mindbomb where she mentions him and she outright says that she misses him during her discussion with Matthias

that implied scene with them in Mindbomb!! i have a Lot of thoughts about that!!! it's all conjecture and fanfic fodder!!! but the reason i mention this is because it seems pretty meta that out of the whole Gally Gang, it's Leela who first sees Brax when he comes back to Gallifrey and in turn she's the first person (besides Matthias, i guess) that he sees upon his return?? idk i just feel like that's somehow a meaningful detail??? also her reaction of utter shock after spending the entire episode missing him and how worked up she is when she tries to tell Romana, like I desperately need to know what happened in this missing scene MR RICHARDS PLEASE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED

Leela insisting on going with Brax when Pandora starts hurting him and their whole conversation there is just. so good. like they're both just so soft and then when Darkel comes in Leela instantly goes into protective mode. like they just have such an open relationship bc Brax doesn't even try to be all pretentious with her, like he doesn't even try to keep up any facades when he's with her he's just very genuine and it really says a lot about both of them -- Leela is so good at seeing people, like getting down to the core of who people are and what makes them them (which is why she's good for Romana, btw, bc Romana has a lot of identity issues) and Brax is so tangled up in who he presents himself as that he barely knows who he actually is anymore but Leela can see that and she makes it so he can truly be himself and he doesn't have to hide. also she's so gentle with him when they talk about Pandora, she's very caring and empathetic and wants to make sure he's okay and i am WEAK

it's been a hot while since i listened to Panacea but I think i remember Brax being really soft with Leela when he first brings the gang to the Axis, like just sounding really glad to see her

ok other than the fact that Brax is lowkey relatable in Reborn (daydreaming fanfic about yourself/people you know? simping for Mary Tamm Romana? yeah mood, my man) there's that scene where they're first appraoching the Citadel on the alt!Gallifrey and it seems like none of them, and Brax specifically, have seen it from the outside in a good long while bc he's very in awe and he tells Leela that he wishes she could see it and he sounds sO hEcKiNg sOFT oh my word-

and once again with Leela thinking of Brax as someone she trusts for help: in Dissassembled when everything is going to crap she straight-up says that she wants to go find Brax bc he'll know what to do/be able to help

at the beginning of Annihilation when Romana is depressed and questioning if Brax truly was her friend and Leela INSTANTLY, NO HESITATION assures her that he was; i lost where i had her exact lines written down but she actually kinda goes off to make sure Romana gets the point

literally forcing myself to talk about this bc it makes my brain stall out but like,,, the Brax Hound in Annihilation,,, Leela being like "goodbye, Braxiatel... again" she sounds so sad and like UGH i always kinda forget how sad it actually is for them to lose Brax in Dissassembled bc like, it was so sudden and they didn't get to say goodbye and Leela is always losing people and i have many many feels about this scene and how all that emotion is made very clear in how they each respond to the Hound (might make a separate post abt this later if anyone is interested ::eyes::)

Enemy Lines is utter bullcrap about these two and I will never stop being salty about how they not only sidelined the very good, very subtle friendship they had in s1-4, but they??? made Leela acutally not trust Brax??? when literally this entire time she's been the one person who probably genuinely trusts him the most?? what the heck, David

I haven't heard TW3 or 4 yet but i'm assuming there's nothing worthwhile in those with regards to this duo (correct me if i'm wrong tho lol, i would love to be mistaken in this assumption)

TL;DR Leela and Brax mututally imprinted on each other and have probably the most open and healthy relationship within the OT4 and it is an absolute CRIME that nobody besides Gary Russell and Justin Richards cared enough to actually build on it in canon

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